


Reliance

by rohpsohpic



Series: 8-letter word that starts with R and ends with -ance [2]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Emotional Baggage, Exes, Friendship, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-Break Up, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-28 11:43:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19811605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rohpsohpic/pseuds/rohpsohpic
Summary: There’s this guy.There’s this other guy.There’s this other guy, or girl, or whoever.





	Reliance

**Author's Note:**

> This work is part of an unfiltered, unedited trilogy. It's messy and maybe emotional, too.  
> Take care out there, okay?

There’s this guy.

Jihoon met him at the grocery store, or the riverside, or maybe it was at the intersection on the way to work, the one with the broken yellow light that no one has ever remembered to fix. It’s not a huge, momentous, fate-changing thing, or at least, it doesn’t feel like it. Jihoon was cold. The guy offered him his coat. He refused. The guy sighed. They saw each other again the next day.

And the next.

And the next.

A month later, they’re dating.

*

There’s this other guy.

Jihoon has known him since forever. It’s hard not to know him when they share the same job.

His name is Seungcheol, and he is as permanent a fixture in Jihoon’s daily scenery as the favorite mug he uses for morning coffee or the well-loved couch at the geographic center of his apartment. Sometimes, Seungcheol visits his apartment, too, but “sometimes” is closer to “almost never.” Jihoon would invite him in, but that would defeat the point of permanent fixtures. Seungcheol’s place is in the cubicle next to his, eight hours a day less bathroom breaks. Jihoon likes knowing where Seungcheol’s place is.

Also, the last time they were together in Jihoon’s apartment, Jihoon had had a minor existential crisis that bordered on catharsis but didn’t. It’s complicated, but at the same time, it’s incredibly simple.

They have this unspoken thing.

Sometimes, Seungcheol speaks, and “sometimes” is closer to “clearly more times than not.” Sometimes, Jihoon wants nothing more than to shut him up, but talking with Seungcheol is like talking with a puppy. A stupid, loyal, concerned puppy. Jihoon has never been great with these things. Seungcheol is the one friend he has known since forever. He doesn’t want to fuck it up.

At their typical nine-to-five scheduled lunch, Seungcheol sits next to him as per usual and throws glances at him as he scoops rice into his mouth and says, eventually, “You didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend.”

Jihoon glowers. Seungcheol just looks at him with all his usual curiosity. “You saw me come into the work the day after the break-up.”

“But you’re dating someone  _ now _ ,” Seungcheol points out matter-of-factly, taking another bite.

Jihoon shrugs. Seungcheol interprets his silence as the topic shutting down and finishes his lunch accordingly. He knows better than to press, and Jihoon doesn’t know how he feels about someone who can read him as easily as Seungcheol. He hasn’t told anyone about Jisoo yet. If Seungcheol already knows, Jihoon has neither cause nor desire to broadcast it anyway.

So, back to this guy. Jisoo.

He has soft eyes and a soft voice and a soft coat and a soft everything. There’s not much that Jihoon remembers about his last breakup, but it was hard. He figures he could use some softness.

Jihoon isn’t the kind of person to daydream or count the hours. It’s easy not to when there’s work to be done, and he’s glad for it. The truth is, Jihoon barely thinks about Jisoo all day, but it would be a lie to say that he doesn’t notice the way his heart stumbles for a solid moment when he wraps up the afternoon with his briefcase in hand and Jisoo waiting for him with a soft smile on the front steps of the office building.

Jisoo offers him his coat. Jihoon declines. Jisoo laughs.

And slowly, tenderly walks him home, listening patiently to Jihoon’s eclectic recollection of his day with each step.

*

There’s this guy.

When they go on dates, Jihoon is reminded why they’re dating in the first place. Jisoo laughs at all his jokes, makes sparkly eyes at him from across the table, stands close enough to hold hands when they walk if holding hands is what Jihoon is in the mood for, asks him if he’s cold, offers him his coat, reaches for the bill every time despite the fact that Jihoon indefatigably swats him away . . .

“Come on, can’t I treat you just this once?” Jisoo tries to pout as Jihoon thwarts his attempt to pay on yet another night out, but it’s clear that he’s fighting back a smile. Jihoon narrows his eyes at him while he fishes out his wallet, but Jisoo only smiles back and taps his own, already out, against the table. “I don’t mind free stuff, but there comes a point when even I start to feel a little guilty.”

Jihoon lifts his eyebrows, momentarily breaking the illusion of gruffness.

“We’ve gone Dutch every time,” he points out. “You’re not exactly freeloading.”

“But I’m not exactly  _ loading _ , either,” Jisoo sighs. Whatever that means.

The wallet drying in his hand, Jihoon looks at the picture of Jisoo’s disappointment and pulls it back. Jisoo looks up belatedly, noticing the change in the light that falls across the table, in time to hear Jihoon say, “Sure then. You take it.”

A skeptical smile quirks at Jisoo’s lips. They haven’t kissed yet, and that’s another thing that Jihoon doesn’t think about, but already there is something familiar about the curve of his mouth: not the comfortable familiarity that comes with knowing a person but a quiet déjà vu, as if he has seen it before, on another person a long time ago or in a dream the night before. It’s the familiarity of someone you wouldn’t feel bad about kissing. “Really?”

Mortified by these thoughts, Jihoon busies himself with pocketing his wallet once more. “Yeah, really. I can let you have one night to empty your pocketbook.” Nevermind the fact that no one says “pocketbook” anymore, as is evinced when Jisoo has to ask what it means, and Jihoon calmly issues a reply, all the while watching Jisoo’s hand smoothly slide over the check and feeling a detached intimacy.

Jisoo foots the bill.

“And don’t even think about paying me back,” Jisoo grins once he has paid at the desk, teasing and charming. Jihoon doesn’t understand this sometimes, how some people become more awake the later it gets.

“I can’t do that,” Jihoon says as he waits for Jisoo to close the door and catch up to where he is standing several tiled squares away.

“Why not?” Jisoo asks.

Jihoon shrugs, walking. Jisoo must have sensed that he isn’t in the mood for holding hands because he is contentedly walking at a small parallel distance. It’s one thing that Jihoon likes about Jisoo. “Relationships are like transactions. When someone gives you a gift, you want it to be something that you can pay back. There’s a balance to it. It’s one of those universal laws. You don’t want to give more than you get.”

He stops talking when he realizes that Jisoo is laughing.

“Sorry,” Jisoo says, “it’s just. I’ve heard a lot of weird things since moving here and sometimes I don’t know how to respond. That’s ridiculous.”

Wondering what “That” would be, Jihoon guesses, “Your culture shock?”

Jisoo shakes his head, wiping at laughter tears. “No, that—that analogy. Love is not a transaction. It’s philanthropy. You give as much as you can and hope that maybe it works for the better, especially if that includes emptying your wallet.”

The easy way that Jisoo says “love” sends an alarm bell through Jihoon’s entire central nervous system. It’s like blinking to find himself centimeters from a hot stove, but Jisoo doesn’t notice a thing. Jisoo is new, running on Pacific time. He doesn’t think twice about easy vocabulary like “love” or “wallet”, basic building-block words with deeper meanings that haven’t quite taken root yet. Jihoon reminds himself of this as he orders his nerves to stop fizzing and throws him a cool look.

“Since when did you learn big words like ‘philanthropy’?” he asks.

“Since now,” Jisoo replies, and slips their hands together.

That night, at the front step of Jihoon's apartment building, just beyond the intersection with the yellow light, Jihoon leans up, and Jisoo leans down, and that is their first kiss. There is something detachedly familiar about Jisoo, like a million other kisses or a song he has forgotten. It's not just like kissing Jisoo; it's like kissing a million other dates, with Jisoo somewhere in the lineup. What if all kisses are the same?

*

There’s this other guy.

Seungcheol is this weird balance between caring too much and desperately trying not to. They're similar like that: It's not that Seungcheol doesn't want to care, just that Seungcheol doesn't want to scare anyone away with the full force of his own feelings. In all the time that Jihoon has known him, he cannot think of one major relationship Seungcheol has ever had other than a brief but intense yearlong fling with Jeonghan. At least, with its billowing summer to passing seasons of dates and longing looks and silly, profound whispers and PDA, it had felt brief. They had met on vacation, and after holding on with all the days of the year and strings of his heart, Seungcheol's feelings had failed to keep Jeonghan from floating away. Feelings were scary, feelings were concrete, and feelings could not tie down balloons no matter how much you loved them.

Since then, Jihoon can understand why Seungcheol is scared of caring.

Seungcheol can only love deeply.

It's irrational to feel guilty about Jisoo, and Seungcheol would never stand to make Jihoon feel guilty about anything if he knew about it, but Jihoon does, and worse, it doesn't have to do with anything that either Seungcheol or Jisoo is doing other than being himself. Seungcheol is a moral compass, one empirical direction or the other. He would never string someone along, never use another person as an experiment. When Seungcheol jumps in, it's not just faith: it's the sheer determination of knowing what you want and putting your soul on the line for it. It's what he did with Jeonghan, and it's what he will always do with the people he loves or doesn't. It's all or nothing. Even after things didn't work out with Jeonghan, Seungcheol had only dismissed the idea of having a rebound relationship with a polite smile.

Meanwhile, Jihoon knows that if it mattered, even if Seungcheol is too  _ Seungcheol _ for it, anyone viewing his relationship with Jisoo would call it a rebound.

"You haven't said much on Jisoo," Jihoon points out. He has been uncharacteristically defensive these days and knows that it is a byproduct of his own internalization. Not that he wants to know what it is that he has been internalizing.

"I haven't met Jisoo," Seungcheol says pointedly, and it's a softer, unaccusatory form of pointedness. "What is there to say?"

Jihoon flicks his eyes up. "That I shouldn't be having a rebound. That I'm making a mistake."

"Is Jisoo a rebound?" Seungcheol asks.

Jihoon exhales. "No."

Raising his eyebrows with polite triumph, Seungcheol lets slip the quietly, unconditionally supportive residue of a smile, "Are you making a mistake?"

With effort, Jihoon pulls his eyes away from that sedulous smile. It's everything familiar and lovable, and maybe that's why he finds it so disquieting. "I don't know."

Seungcheol slowly, reluctantly lets the smile fade, and they eat their lunch. A short while later, Jihoon catches Seungcheol looking at him from across the table, a thoughtful, interested look on his face. Jihoon glowers, not because he knows that it's a preface to a question but because he doesn't like it, the dramatic pause that comes before. If you have a question, ask it. Jihoon props his chopsticks against his bowl and looks hard at Seungcheol. He silently demands him to ask.

"Am I ever going to meet any of your boyfriends?" Seungcheol does, recognizing when he has been granted audience and shocking Jihoon even if he had seen it coming. Even if he had been the one to start it. Jihoon manages to keep his face flat as Seungcheol presses onward, "I've known you forever, and I haven't met a single boyfriend of yours. Not even the guy who broke your heart the last time around. If this Jisoo might be the one, then I'd like to get the chance to know him, too."

Unable to think of a response, Jihoon says, "I'll think about it."

Seungcheol raises his eyebrows, and that kind and unintrusive smile slides onto his face again, the kind of smile that belongs to the archetypical boy next door. The kind of smile that alleviates all pressure, all obligation, all strings, the kind of smile that loves you forever and unconditionally. The kind of smile that expects nothing in return and loves you still. The kind of smile that is filled with so much friendship, it overflows. The kind of smile that belongs to Seungcheol.

Jihoon knows, then, that Seungcheol won't press him, that Seungcheol will let the matter drop, that Seungcheol won't stop being his friend no matter what. Seungcheol would never want to impose. It's why he let Jeonghan go when he thought he was no longer wanted. It's why Jihoon knows that there's a near-zero chance of anything happening between them even when they've known each other forever. Not that Jihoon wants to be in that kind of relationship with Seungcheol, either. But Jihoon can't say he is so repelled by the thought of being with someone like Seungcheol, someone who reveals his whole heart in his smile. Jihoon throws a glance at Seungcheol and resumes eating, too.

He really is too good at friendzoning himself.

*

There’s this guy.

The first time Jihoon has lunch with Jisoo and Seungcheol at the same time, he is honestly surprised that something doesn’t spontaneously rip through the fabric of spacetime. They’re sitting in the tiny garden of the office courtyard, and Jisoo had the foresight to bring a large bucket of fried chicken from a nearby fast food place for them to share, and Jihoon doesn’t know if he feels more anxious or proud when Jisoo and Seungcheol start talking to each other because they carry the conversation so easily and he doesn’t know how long it’s going to last.

Jisoo looks perfectly at home in the sunshine, squinting into the light and wearing a smile that doesn’t really go away. The sun is hanging high and small and bright in the sky, and Jisoo is glowing as Seungcheol coaxes out his life story piece by piece. Seungcheol asks the questions that Jihoon can’t believe he hasn’t, and Jihoon doesn’t know if he’s more annoyed or ashamed because it feels like he has been saving something for later and Seungcheol is cracking it open now. It’s awful and fascinating.

Seungcheol is smiling, too, but over the course of the lunch, there’s something subtly different about it, like the sun shifting across the sky; or rather, the earth shifting in relation to the sun.

At the end of their lunch break, Jisoo leaves with a quick kiss that makes Jihoon flutter from his toes up. Later, Jihoon turns to Seungcheol and says, “Well?”

“He’s nice,” Seungcheol is blinking hard. “He has good taste in chicken.”

“You look dazed,” says Jihoon.

“The weird thing is, I think I’ve heard his story before,” says Seungcheol, looking bothered, “but that’s impossible.” Seungcheol snaps out of it. “Anyway, don’t worry about it. Jisoo seems like a nice guy. I don’t think he’ll break your heart like the last one, but if he does, then as your best friend, I’m obligated to break his fingers.”

Even later, Jisoo meets up with Jihoon again for their regular walk home, and Jihoon can’t help but look at him differently. He doesn’t like how Seungcheol’s words have gotten to him more than he’d like to let on, crawled under his skin with a strange and uncomfortable suspicion. He wishes that Seungcheol hadn’t said it because now he can’t stop thinking it.

“So?” Jisoo asks, a playful tilt to his head, “Did I do okay?”

Finding himself too tired to speak, Jihoon gives him a noncommittal raise of the eyebrows instead, and Jisoo laughs good-naturedly as he falls into step.

“Seungcheol seems like a really good guy,” Jisoo notes. “He cares about you a lot, you know.”

“I know,” Jihoon says, his voice coming out hoarse. He hadn’t thought that it would come out this hoarse, and it jars him.

Jisoo hears it, too, and he gives Jihoon a concerned look. When he doesn’t return it, Jisoo quietly wraps an arm of solidarity around Jihoon’s shoulders and guides him home like that, held and protected and embroiled in some unspeakable worry. It hurts worse, but Jihoon doesn’t say it, warm and sunlit in Jisoo’s arms and hit by the dark, guilty thought that Jisoo doesn’t deserve this, either.

Soft, soft, soft.

*

There’s this other guy, or girl, or whoever.

Jihoon doesn’t remember much about them. Someone suggests to him that it might be a defense mechanism, the most basic of defense mechanisms, repression. That would certainly add up. It’s like Jihoon threw all his memories into a box, buried it, and threw away the key.

They were good memories, Jihoon knows it. Bad memories wouldn’t hurt so much to lose.

*

There’s this guy.

As they wait at the pedestrian crossing, Jisoo looks at the broken yellow light and frowns. “Someone should really fix that.”

*

There’s this other guy, or girl, or whoever. Jihoon doesn’t remember much about them.

One time, someone found a penny in Jihoon’s couch, and it destroyed him for a week. Because he had remembered something, a small, single-cent hint at his ex’s identity, this person, this idea, this fading figment of his memory that he had loved more than anything. He couldn’t remember his ex’s name, and that small fact was the black hole that was constantly tearing at his heart, but against his better judgment, Jihoon had kept the coin.

*

There’s this guy.

His name is Jisoo, and.

He makes Jihoon not feel like he’s drowning, and.

He’s soft, everything about him is soft, and.

He walks Jihoon home from work every day, and.

He sings him all the songs he has stuck inside his head, and.

He says all the right words, and.

He offers him his jacket, and.

He might actually have the capacity to love, and.

Jihoon can’t tell if he is his ex.

And—

*

There’s this other guy.

His name is Seungcheol, and he looks weary when he steps into Jihoon’s apartment for the first time in months. There are bags under his eyes. They look heavy. Somehow, he makes it work.

“Take a break from all the circles you’re running inside your own head, will you?” Seungcheol asks, and if Jihoon didn’t have such a headache, he would laugh out of annoyance because if it was that easy, wouldn’t he? Only, Seungcheol pins him with his eyes, and they’re both tired, and he’s not laughing.

Jihoon steadfastly applies himself to his tea set. “You’re a very funny guy.”

Seungcheol doesn’t sit, but he lets out a sigh that is indisputably meant for Jihoon to hear and wanders over to occupy himself on the other side of the kitchen island, watching Jihoon boil water. There’s nothing self-conscious about it. It feels like such a disproportionately normal act.

Jihoon’s hands numb themselves to the act. Boil the water. Prepare the tea.

He feels like they should be shaking as he submerges the twin teabags, one in each cup, but they aren’t. Somehow, he can’t bring himself to lift his head. He’s not sure if he wants to see Seungcheol or not even if the words he wants to say to the latter have been steeping inside his head from the time he got a new boyfriend. Since before it, even.

Jihoon says them:

“I’m worried.”

Seungcheol’s voice says, solid, reliable, “I know.”

No prodding. But Jihoon wants to spill.

So he does.

About the broken yellow light at the intersection.

About how he forgot his ex’s name.

About all the ugly, jaded thoughts that he can’t get out of his brain, like tea that can no longer be separated, leaves and liquid fused into a hot, tenebrous, bitter swirl.

About Jisoo. About every serious relationship he has ever had. About every person he can dredge up who has ever gone to shit because they made the mistake of falling in love with him. About his fear. That Jisoo might be his ex. For Seungcheol’s forever with him. Of fucking up. Again.

And again.

And again.

Seungcheol listens to all of it, a teakettle emptying itself into anything that will hold its insides. It’s the most, Jihoon thinks, he has ever spoken at once, and Seungcheol catches every last dreg of it. The tea throws a hot screen of steam in front of Jihoon’s face, and he talks, and talks, and talks irreversibly past the point where the tea stops making clouds and his voice is strong and his hands are undetectable. He feels weak and emboldened. He feels like he could sink into the floor and curse out the ceiling. He feels scared to look at the damage.

At the end of it, when Jihoon’s voice finally flees altogether and they’re left in a vacuum of cold blood and cold beverages, Jihoon hears Seungcheol set his tea down with the heavy noise of a cup that hasn’t been emptied:

“That’s valid.”

Jihoon looks up. Seungcheol is looking at him.

“That’s valid, Ji, and obviously I haven’t been through the things that you’ve been through, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about them. I might not have the right thing to say right now, but I know you. You’re Jihoon, and you’re one of the strongest people I know. And you’re going to get through this.”

Jihoon is surprised when he notices the feeling of tears on his face.

Fuck, he really is basic.

If he needs a hug right now, Seungcheol holds his arms out and offers him one.

*

There’s this guy.

He’s standing at the foot of the steps, smiling up at Jihoon when the latter steps out of the building. His name is Jisoo, and Jisoo says he loves this owner of the name Jihoon, and Jisoo believes it, even knowing that this Jihoon might not love him back. There’s something magical and strange about love, and it’s times like this when Jihoon doesn’t know if he believes in it too little or too much.

As Jihoon swallows his nerves and starts marching down the stares, Jisoo falls in line so that they can walk side-by-side.

“There’s something I want to tell you,” Jihoon says, and Jisoo just pleasantly raises his eyebrows.

“Oh?”

Jihoon walks a few more steps before he can open his mouth. It feels strange, having this conversation in broad daylight, in good weather, in something as casual as a walk home. Part of him is glad that they aren’t standing still. If they were, he’s sure, his knees would have given out by now.

But no.

Walking is purposeful.

“It’s about my relationship before this one,” Jihoon says, noticing when Jisoo bites his lip, “and before you tell me not to compare the past with the present, I’m going to tell you that that isn’t what I’m trying to do here. I don’t talk much, but some things, I  _ need  _ to talk about, Jisoo. Maybe you don’t, but I’m not like you, and I can’t understand that for you, and if that means we’re incompatible, I don’t know. Maybe we’re incompatible. Maybe that’s the way it is.”

Jisoo is quiet. Jihoon can hear their steps crunching on the sidewalk.

“What is it?” Jisoo asks.

“I met someone, and they were one of the strongest people in the world, and for whatever inexplicable reason, they loved me, and I broke their heart, and it broke my heart. And I hated myself for it. In the movies, they make breakups seem so easy, but they’re not. It was one of the most meaningful relationships I’ve ever had in my life, and I don’t remember a single thing from it. I packed all my feelings into a box and buried it so deeply that I can’t find it anymore. I can’t even remember their fucking name.

“And I’ve never been great at putting that pain into words. I’m not . . . I’m not strong like that. And its such a stupid thing to be torn up about every single day, but I am. I am, and it’s stupid. It’s like I lost someone important to me, twice, and even if I could remember a single thing from our relationship, it’s not like I can reminisce about it with anyone else because I never told anyone else anything about it. I don’t know. I’m not saying this right.

“What I mean is, I messed up. Being with me isn’t going to be easy. I don’t know how love works. I don’t know if it’s a transaction or philanthropy or a cosmic field day. I don’t know if love is something we choose or something that happens to us, but if I say this and you don’t love me anymore, I’ll be okay, and I hope you will, too. Maybe I’m messing something up right now just by saying this, but, fuck it, Jisoo, there’s something I need to ask.”

Jihoon sees the coin in his mind, the penny held between two fingers, and looks for a face on the other side.

“Are you my ex?”

*

There’s this guy.

There’s this other guy.

There’s this other guy, or girl, or whoever.

*

Jihoon cries.

That night is a long and tearful and so fucking lonely one.

*

The dreams are awful and fascinating.

Jihoon is chasing after someone whose face he cannot see.

Sometimes, it’s Jisoo.

Sometimes, it’s Seungcheol.

Sometimes, it’s Abe Lincoln, winking at him from the face of a coin.

Sometimes, it’s a shadowy figure that never looks his way, walking slowly out of sight with its back turned to him, and that’s the worst one because the memory is disappearing in front of his eyes and Jihoon is running like his life depends on it but only getting farther away from it.

“Jisoo,” Jihoon calls, stopping the former in his tracks. Jisoo pivots to look at him with the entirety of his searing gaze. It’s freezing, and Jihoon can see his breath but not Jisoo’s. His hands feel uselessly, irrelevantly cold inside his pockets. They’re clouds going nowhere. “Are you my ex?”

Jisoo pinches his lips at a distance.

*

Jihoon calls in sick and stays inside his apartment the next day. He cries until he thinks he can’t anymore, only to be proved wrong the next day.

And the next.

And the next.

Fuck it.

A month later, he walks into work and sits down at his cubicle.

“Does it hurt?” Seungcheol asks.

“Yes,” Jihoon deadpans, being brutally honest, “but not as much.” He picks at a Styrofoam cup, filled halfway with caffeine. He feels strangely himself. “It’s crazy, but I’m actually looking forward to being single for once.”

“Doesn’t sound that crazy to me,” Seungcheol says, showing a hint of a smile like a sliver of day over the horizon. There’s his best friend. “You could use some time for yourself.”

Jihoon finally smiles, just a bit.

“Thanks.”

**Author's Note:**

> (As always, remember to look after yourselves. Be kind to yourself. It can be easy to forget sometimes, but don't.)


End file.
